Award-Winning Author Timothy Egan to Speak at UW April 18

Author Timothy Egan will speak Tuesday, April 18, at 1:30 p.m. in the University of Wyoming Union Ballroom. (Lisa Howe Verhovek Photo)

Timothy Egan, an acclaimed writer and chronicler of the West, will speak Tuesday, April 18, at 1:30 p.m. in the University of Wyoming Union Ballroom.

His presentation is free and open to the public, and will be followed with a book signing. The University Store will sell books at the event. No audio or video recordings or flash photography will be permitted.

Egan’s presentation, part of the UW Libraries Development Board’s annual author event, is funded by the McMurry-Spieles Endowment for Library Excellence. Members of the development board will host a dinner with Egan at 6 p.m. To make a reservation, go to http://wyoalumni.uwyo.edu/timothyegan by Tuesday, April 11.

Those attending the afternoon talk are encouraged to arrive early to allow time for parking and seating. UW Transit and Parking Services will provide complimentary parking in the Wyoming Union parking lot from noon-3 p.m., and free shuttle service will be available the afternoon of the talk. For more information about campus parking and shuttle services, visit www.uwyo.edu/tps.

Egan is an award-winning author of eight books. His talk at UW will focus on his most recent book, “The Immortal Irishman: Thomas Francis Meagher and the Invention of Irish America,” a New York Times best-seller. The book chronicles the life of Meagher, a 19th century Irish rebel who was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony, escaped to America, led the Irish Brigade from New York during the Civil War and served as territorial governor of Montana.

“The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America,” another New York Times best-seller, is the story of the nation’s biggest wildfire. It won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and a Washington State Book Award. The book was the inspiration for a documentary, also titled “The Big Burn,” which aired on PBS’s “The American Experience” in 2014.

Egan’s “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” is a National Book Award winner. Walter Cronkite called Egan’s account of the nation’s worst environmental disaster “can’t-put-it-down history.” Egan was featured prominently in Ken Burns’ 2012 film, “The Dust Bowl.”

Among his other books are “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis”; “The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest”; and “The Winemaker’s Daughter,” a novel.

In addition to writing books, Egan writes an online opinion column for the New York Times. He previously worked as one of the newspaper’s national correspondents, roaming the West. In 2001, he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team of reporters that wrote the series “How Race is Lived in America.”

A graduate of the University of Washington, Egan also holds honorary degrees from Whitman College, Willamette University, Lewis and Clark College, and Western Washington University.

For more information about Egan’s presentation, call Rosanne Latimer at (307) 766-3279 or email rlatimer@uwyo.edu.